Ken stopped by to check on his table, two people on a date. He was young, about nineteen or so with short, spiky brown hair. Upon getting to the table, the woman was by herself. The man that had been with her was not there. She started rambling, and as she kept talking, what had happened became clear. Her date had dumped her and left her with the bill. He felt bad for her. She asked about dessert menu with pictures, and he shook his head. “No, sorry, but we do have a dessert menu, give me a second,” he told her. He came back seconds with her a dessert menu.

The woman kept talking, going about her name or something like that. She asked his, which was kind of silly because he had introduced himself when he had first come to the table. “It’s Ken, remember,” he told her. “I introduced himself when I first came up to your table.” It was only after the words came out of his mouth that he realized that some people might think that rude. He didn’t think so, and he hadn’t said it with a tone that said rudeness. You never knew how people were going to respond, though. “Let me give you a few minutes while you look at that.”

In reality, it was only so he could talk to Ichiro. It was obvious that the woman wouldn’t be able to pay the entire bill. He doubted that she had brought that much money when he had ordered the most expensive things on the menu. And that was saying something because they were a family restaurant. They didn’t have a ton of very expensive food, but they had a couple of really nice things just to have a variety. He found his manager doing his rounds, and he made a motion to come over to him.

“I’m fairly certain that my table, table thirty,” Ken said, pointing over to the young woman sitting alone, “can’t pay for her meal. She was on a date, and he ordered like the most expensive stuff on the menu. I feel bad for her, but there’s no way she can pay for all he ordered. Can we do something?” He said he’d take care of it, and walked over to her table, leaving Ken to take care of the other tables. He hoped that Ichiro could deal with Tsubaki. What kind of guy ditched his date and left the girl with the tab? That was horrible.

Ichiro had been talking to one of their regulars when he looked over and saw Ken giving him a soft ‘come here’ motion. Internally sighing, he moved over to the young man. “Yes, what’s up?” he asked him. Ken informed him that a woman had come on a date and apparently been ditched and left with the bill. His heart went out to her, and surely, he wouldn’t leave her with her date’s part of the bill. It was expensive stuff. What could he do? If he took them off her bill, that was expensive food that he was going to have to have the business pay for in some way.

Ichiro reached the table and smiled at her. “Hello, there, I’m Ichiro Watashi, the manager here,” he said, holding out his hand. She would surely recognize his last name. It was the same as the name of the restaurant, of course. His long brown hair was tied back and he was wearing a blue shirt with his suit. “Ken informed that you were left with a rather expensive bill,” he said, keeping his voice low. He didn’t want to embarrass her or anything, so he made sure that she was the only one he could hear him.

“I think we’ve all been there,” he told her. “And considering what Ken said you ordered, I doubt that you can afford all that on your own. I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you fifty percent off the bill.” He did the math in his head and was pretty sure that would be reasonable enough for her. “It’s not fair to you to have to foot all of that. Any decent person wouldn’t do that.”

Sustained dark moods were not in Tsubaki's bag of tricks but she was glad to have someone help her through this bad night.
She lightly tapped Ichiro on the side of his arm with her fist.
"You're a good egg, 'Chiro. Real..." Tsubaki paused and squinted her eyes for a moment while searching for the right word she'd heard someone use once. "Chi-val-rous. I think that's the word. Good guy, anyway. Thanks."

Tsubaki awkwardly reached into the one of the pouches of her leather belt after a series of leanings to and fro and retrieved fifty yuans which she hoped would cover about half.
She sighed and placed a worn brown case on the table which she opened to reveal a trumpet.
"I also have this. Um, not to sell or anything but I could, like play a set. Jazz the place up. If somebody throws a couple of yuans in the case it can help cover my bill. Whad'ya say?"

She looked up at Ichiro and grinned. "Come on, Ichi...if I play I won't be able to talk." She snorted a quick laugh. "I'll even walk you home and fend off any criminal types. It's what any decent person would do, right?"

Awwwwww...." Tsubaki moaned after having her idea of playing rejected but got over it. It wasn't like being dumped and stuck with an outrageous bill.
It became obvious that she wouldn't feel like playing after the food came. Tsubaki assumed that her date thought himself assertive by ordering for both of them without asking what she wanted. A komodo sausage with steak arrived. Fresh meat was a rare delicacy in her family and Tsubaki dove in immediately. She was six bites in before something dawned on her.
"You're a waterbender? That's nifty! So, like are you more of a fighter or like a pro bender kinda guy? Do you follow the sport? I know a guy who knows someone who is trying out for some team. Dragon-Somethings. Me, I like when people get excited about it but it's not really for me. It's just fun being in the crowd, you know?"

She began to eat again but another question came to mind. "You ever do any pro bending, Ichiro?"

Tsubaki began separating the food into sections with her chopsticks. Her date had ordered enough for three or more meals even after she had her fill.
With a mouth full of komodo rhino sausage, which Tsubaki never had before she gestured for Ichiro to sit down.
"Come on and eat," she said through her chewed meat. Considering that she might not have been understood without an interpreter understanding her full-mouthed language she repeated herself.
"The least I could do is share some of the food you paid half for."

Throughout the evening Tsubaki used her thirst to talk further with Ichiro. Every time he had come by to fill up her water she asked another question or series of questions.
"Why aren't you the Dragon Hawk's waterbender. You can bend water and you know how to play the game so why not try out? Those other two can waitress and bend and do all right. Is it the manager thing that makes you so busy?"

After the second refill Tsubaki began to wonder more about Ichiro personally.
"Do people get all flirty and stuff to get out of paying? Have you ever given a free meal to someone who flirted with you?....I'm not saying you're a soft touch or anything but you're a good guy and it'd be lousy if people took advantage of you."
She leaned closer to Ichiro so she could lower her voice and still be heard.
"Seriously, 'Chiro, if someone did that to you point them out I'll...you know..." She threw a few small punches to physically indicate what she would do to person who would try to play her new favorite waiter.

As the crowd dwindled to Tsubaki alone and she found herself unable to even pick at the excess of food her date had ordered. She asked a passing waiter for some containers to take home. She imagined her parents would be disappointed to hear about her date but glad she brought home food.

As the restaurant closed for the evening Tsubaki busied herself with stacking the chairs on the tables and wiping down tables with a rag. Being visibly armed meant people rarely asked her not to linger places, except for police officers. While she had been told that playing her trumpet would bother customers Tsubaki didn't recall anything about the staff. She sat on the floor next to her bags of leftovers and in front of the door and began to play her trumpet.

Being walked out on after failing an audition at The Golden Fan club didn't quite put Tsubaki in the mood to play something cheerful. What started as Foggy Swamp Blues, a murder ballad about being left to die in a swamp soon turned into an upbeat and more jazzy rendition which made the prospect of sinking to one's doom seem like an adventure. After all, her evening started badly but ended up fun. Unlike her disastrous audition earlier that day she did not start sneezing in the middle of the song.

She called out so that her voice would be heard in the back where she was sure Ichiro heard her.
"Yo, Ichiro! You ready? This time you can ask all the questions."

Tsubaki paused for a moment when Ichiro described the women that flirted with him as "not my type".
"Oooooohhhh..." She said with a knowing look and smile. "I guess that means I can't flirt some free cake out of you, huh?"
When Ichiro claimed he could take care of himself she tried to reconcile the thoughts of such a nice guy getting into a brutal street fight and couldn't. Experience also taught her that most men over-estimated their fighting ability...it was how she won a lot of her own fights.
She made a scoffing sound. "Psssh. You can't be TOO safe, Ichiro." She gestured down to her belts of weapons. "Why have one weapon at your side when you can have a bunch? What's the worst that could happen? Nothing happens on the way home? Even if we bump into some triads we'll have a better shot with two people. Or would that hurt your man pride?"

When told to go home that she didn't actually work there Tsubaki responded with her usual smile.
"You bought half my dinner so I owe you and I'm not going home until I'm sure you're safe. 'Cause, you know, if someone reads the paper to me or whatever and I hear some manager gets knifed by a Red Monsoon I'll think 'If only I went home with Ichiro he wouldn't be dead'. And then I'd feel bad. Do you want me to feel bad?"
Tsubaki was used to people giving her her way due to sheer frustration by that point.

Once the restaurant had closed Tsubaki was pleased to find that the taciturn man who had been waiting on her asked a few question of his own, who was she and why she seemed so fascinated by him.
Tsubaki playfully punched Ichiro in the shoulder.
"Tsubaki Ito, remember?" She chuckled softly but it ended in a loud snort as most of her laughs did. "Um, let's see, uh..." She grunted to herself when she decided how to proceed.

Tsubaki started out by pulling a green-handled short sword from the back of her belt giving Ichiro a long moment to look at it.
"I was born...eh...twenty-two or twenty-three years ago...not sure. This sword was passed down to me by my grandfather and mother. My first memory was watching my grandfather hone this sword. I think I was seven when he died. He was always laughing a smiling like there was a joke only he could hear." Tsubaki sheathed the kodachi and pulled out a set of three throwing knives. "These my dad made me. Good with metal, my dad. I think I was ten. It was right around then I noticed other kids went to school. I stayed home and learned weapons because no point in being able to read if you don't live long enough. Never learned how...wonder if I should."

Knowing she didn't have to go through her entire life and weapon collection, Tsubaki skipped to a well-worn but maintained shuriken. "A boy gave me this after my first kiss and my first broken heart. That year I discovered that chocolate is good for that sort of thing.He didn't even tell me he just wanted to be friends. I just got a 'I don't like you, Tsubaki.' I think his mom made him give me a weapon to apologize."
A slim, black and ornate stiletto brought a smile to Tsbuaki's face as she unsheathed it from the left side of her belt. "My dad thought I should learn an instrument so I'd be at least a little girly so he sent me to his girlfriend The Bride of Nine Spiders. Oh, don't worry, she was my mom's girlfriend too so it's okay. He'd never cheat on my mom or on The Bride. Anyway, she was my mom and dad's girlfriend and she taught me to play the trumpet. I loved weapons a long time so I was surprised when I found out I could love music too. It's like..." She made gestures as if she were trying to grasp the right words out of the air itself.
"Can't explain it. Hearing The Bride of Nine Spiders play for the first time was like the first time you noticed the sun. It was just this big, shining thing and it made everything brighter. So I learned the trumpet. One day she just disappeared and any time I ask my parents about it they just look sad. She just left me this stiletto and that was it."

Not wanting a repeat of earlier tonight Tsubaki kept her weapons sheathed and the stories of her time as an Equalist and occasional muscle for a criminal likewise hidden.
"I knocked around for a while doing odd jobs. Not much around for someone who isn't educated. Sometimes I do bodyguard work or make deliveries. I'd like to play music for a living but I bomb a lot of auditions. Crowds make me nervous. I get shy."

After twenty-two years Tsubaki had gotten used to the fact that she could run on at the mouth. "Sorry I rambled so long. That was a really complicated question, though. People have long and involved stories and everyone's' is different. See, that's why I wanted to get to know you. It's a big, big world out there and everyone looks at it different. I've seen Republic City a hundred different ways because I ask a hundred different people what they see. When everyone is different and interesting how can you not be fascinated?"

"I bet you got a lot of interesting stories yourself."

Tsubaki's facial reaction to Ichiro's story involved pursed lips, a scrunched-up face and squinting and then a smile at how silly she must have looked.
"You don't see things right, 'Chiro. Um..." She once again produced one of the throwing knives she had shown Ichiro earlier.
"You know the story behind this knife, right? It's special. It's shorter than the rest because the tip broke in a fight. I used it to win my first taste of alcohol in a bar bet. Saying your life is just bending and working is like saying all this knife does it cut."
She put her throwing knife back into it's sheath before once more picking up the bags of leftovers she carried with her.
"Work is interesting, bending is interesting, you're interesting. Even if nothing weird happened that would be still be interesting because the lack of weirdness but be, uh, you know...um, weird. You sound like you got a neat family and you're about to go on some adventure to the other side of the world to meet more neat family. If I could read I'd read that book."

"What does it feel like to bend? What frustrates you the most about work? What's a good book and why is it good? All these boring things can be interesting if you just go further. Like, I can't read so I'm amazed by people who can. Guy I know, he always has a book in his hand so I get to learn all sorts of stuff through him. You see, there's always someone who don't know what you know and is interested. The problem is that not everybody goes up to total strangers and asks them about their job."
Tsubaki lifted up her bag of leftovers.
"Do you want any of this? I don't think my parents can eat it all. Then I can still say I had dinner with a nice guy."

"You know the nice things about life stories, Ichiro? They're always changing. My life story didn't used to be much but it's gotten more interesting. Met interesting people who did interesting things. Now your life story can have a chapter about a nice chat with a girl who really likes weapons."

Tsubaki smiled while scrunching her yellow eyes. "Let's go get a drink some time. I know a bar. A man's bar...you know. Just a place where guys drink. Guys who like guys. Forbidden Colors, it's called. It's nice but not, you know, fake nice. Guys want to meet other guys there and drink. It's not a host place where a guy gets paid to look interested. Worse comes to worse, you don't find anyone but you get drunk on my yuans. I'll even play a bunch of happy songs to cheer you up."

The red-clad, part-time thug slapped her new friend in the shoulder.
"You seem like a serious guy who needs a totally-not-serious person around so he has an excuse to get loose. If you regret something you just say:" Tsubaki scrunched up her face in an exaggerated scowl while lowering her voice to match Ichiro's deeper tone. "That damn, Tsubaki! She made me drink and talk to cute guys. I didn't want to but she was armed and I couldn't overpower her...and she has nice hair and smells nice and guys totally dig her."

She stared laughing at her own impression because she had a feeling Ichiro would not. "Okay, maybe you won't say that last part because I'm always getting sweaty and I got hair that can scrape rust off a battleship. Here, feel it." She bent her head so Ichiro could feel the stiff, wiry hair.

"I'm not one of those people that can afford one of those, you know, talky things with the cords. You can leave messages for me at Ni-Ten Dumplings. Sometimes I do deliveries there. Or ask around the Golden Fan. I have to be the easiest person to contact since I know a lot of people who in turn know a lot of other people and stuff gets around to me pretty fast."

She grinned a wide, toothy grin while laughing and snorting. "It's okay. I know I talk too much. You'll get used to it."
While, out-going Tsubaki knew when not to stalk people, and that was when she was not being instructed and paid to stalk people. Since Ichiro didn't owe her boss an outstanding debt she was fine with letting him go about his business. After all, not everyone had the flexible schedule of someone who only did sporadic work for a criminal.
"Good night and when you get back from vacation I want to see photos. Lots. I've never been anywhere neat like one of the poles. Or even out of this city."

"Saturday nights are always jumping, 'Chiro. I'll scheme up something fun and I'll meet you here Saturday after dark." She lightly punched him in the shoulder and her grin widened even further.
"In the meantime..." Tsubaki raised her arms and pumped them in the air repeatedly with every syllable she spoke.
"Get. Ready. To. Mingle!" With great volume Tsubaki had managed to make the word "mingle" into ten syllables and high pitched enough to possibly damage a dog's eardrums.

"Dress nice. Saturday we do Operation: Get Ichiro A Date Or Atl Least A One Night Stand Or Maybe A Coffee Or Something. Woooo!"


The next Saturday just before sunset Tsubaki waited at Ichiro's door sporting a red jacket and tie paired with a black, shirt and knee-length skirt. Her usual knee-high black boots were shined and each concealing a hidden blade. While holding her trumpet case with her right hand Tsubaki banged on Ichiro's door with her left.

It was magic hour in Republic City, that wonderful time between afternoon and evening when everything seemed like it was an idealistic painting. It felt nice to dress up and go out and not have to pull a weapon on someone, though she was entirely prepared for that to happen should things get more violent that most social gatherings.

Though she was a woman who liked the unpredictability of life Tsubaki Ito also liked to be prepared, hence her mobile weapon collection. Plan A involved a casual jazz bar and a number of men she knew from her days in The Equalist she knew or thought to be the kind of men who liked men. If Ichiro had to convert one of her old allies that was fine by her. She wondered if she should have mentioned that Ichiro was a bender, that might have been more important piece of information for the former Equalists rather than that Ichiro was cute and had a steady job.
The worry only lasted a moment. Who in their right mind discusses politics on the first date?

Impatiently she knocked on the door again.
'Chiro! All the good men will be taken. Hurry up!"